Friday, July 04, 2008

May I Kindly Suggest You Kids Get Off My Fucking Lawn

Young man, I am okay with your ringtone being an obscenity-filled and derivative rap number. Where I part ways with my tolerance is when you don't answer the damn thing, instead holding it up to your ear and thumping your foot to the beat, and the tinny noise fills the small lobby of the ice cream shop where a bunch of kids are waiting around for their mint and chip cones and you, and that fine hip-hop artist, treat them to two "motherfuckers" and a "bitch." Because your defiant stance and distinct possibility of packed heat, I merely suggested you lower the volume on that "dope ass cut" rather than do what I longed so, which was to turn it to vibrate, shove it up your ass and call you repeatedly.

I laugh at you, teen about town, with your flat-brimmed ballcap askew, at an angle which I imagine you think is "rakish," but is actually moronic. I actually enjoy, get a kick out of, a chuckle, the waistband of your pants holding up the bottom of your droopy ass, despite the presence of a studded belt that matches the accoutrement on your wrist. I know it's a generational thing, though the only true fashion faux pas I can recall from my own high school days was the occasional flipped Izod collar. Oh wait, there was some velour, too. And a mullet or two. So, you see, you and I are not so different. I would like to think you'll look back someday--as I do--and laugh at your garment choices. Alas, when I politely ask you to step aside so my son and I can pass through the narrow mall hallway, I would be most appreciative if you didn't look at me with slow-eyed, slovenly contempt as if I had just asked you to wipe my ass free of a week's worth of medium-texture diarrhea, and move aside more than that slight half-step with your purposeful speed and dexterity of a tortoise on quaaludes. The next time you do that, I'm going to drop you right there in front of Eddie Bauer and pummel you flat as a v-neck sweater. I've been working out.

I was genuinely thankful when you two boys invited AJ into your game of catch in the pool and even when it turned into a more aggressive form of grab-ass-ery, with more participants, more surface-skidding balls, and blood high in the cheeks, I was cool with the escalation. Then you specifically made it a plan to try to hit others in the face with your throws, which is the moment I desired to ask your parents if they would like me to play the same game with them. I've never had the most accurate arm, but I've got a hose. You can believe that.